NHS pays THIRTY TIMES more for cod-liver oil than high street cost:
From Jill Reilly Daily Mail UK
Capsules being bought for up to £89.50 – Identical versions available to consumers on the high street for just £3.50
Doctors prescribing the fish oil, available in shops, on prescription
Chemists are ‘selecting’ which suppliers they feel are best
NHS is trying to make savings of £20 billion over the next three years
The NHS is paying up to nearly thirty times the usual cost for common over-the-counter products being prescribed by NHS doctors.
Cod-liver oil capsules are being bought for up to £89.50 – with identical versions available to consumers on the high street for just £3.50.
GPs and NHS doctors are prescribing the fish oil on prescription, despite it being available without prescription.
This means chemists are able to select products they deem suitable from drug companies and bill the taxpayer, part of the wider prescription scandal which has emerged in recent years.
A whistleblower told The Daily Telegraph: ‘When they got a prescription for something like cod-liver oil, pharmacists used to walk round the counter, pick a pack off the shelf and then charge the NHS that cost. Now, all of a sudden, they are dispensing packets of cod-liver oil for £89. They don’t even keep these products in the open sale area of the pharmacy.’
The newspaper reported that the capsules were supplied by a small pharmaceutical company called Ennogen, in Kent.
It sells cod-liver oil under the brand name Elive.
Elive extra strength capsules of cod liver oil – 1.05g capsules – cost the NHS £89.50. The comparable product from Seven Seas costs £3.50 – almost thirty times less.
COD-LIVER OIL ON THE HIGH STREET
A small pharmaceutical company called Ennogen, in Kent supplies the NHS with capsules of cod-liver oil under the brand name Elive.
The 500mg capsules of Elive cod-liver oil cost £87.20 for packets of 30.
Boots Pharmaceuticals: £1.59 for 30
Seven Seas Pure Cod Liver Oil Extra High Strength: £6.19 for 30
Waitrose Cod Liver Oil: £2.29 for 90
Everyday health: £2.49 for 60
Asda Cod Liver Oil: £3.50 for 200
Elive is now very popular among chemists – last August, Ennogen supplied 0.2 per cent of the cod liver oil products dispensed by chemists – by March that had risen t0 10.7 per cent.
The firm was reimbursed £17,252 by the NHS for extra strength cod liver oil in March.
The revelation is likely to add more pressure to the system – the NHS is under pressure to make savings of £20 billion over the next three years and many trusts have resorted to cutting staff and rationing treatments.
Although the money it receives from the Government has not been cut – unlike other departments – it has ordered to spend the money more efficiently.
Ministers say the savings have to be made now to ensure there are enough funds to pay for the care of the aging population.
In November it was revealed that hospitals are squandering £500million a year paying too much for blankets, syringes and other basic equipment.
An investigation found that some are being charged twice as much as others for the same items.
Researchers looked at ten NHS trusts and found some hospitals were paying £120 for a box of electric blankets while other paid only £47.
Others were charged £23 for a box of forceps which cost others just £13. Some trusts were paying £1,109 for knee implants while others were paying £787.
The study by Ernst and Young calculated the annual total wasted as £500million.
Ernst and Young’s Joe Stringer said some hospitals were reluctant to tell others their fees as they were competing for patients.
He added: ‘Our analysis raises serious concerns about price variation and spending in the procurement of NHS supplies.
‘At the root of this problem lies the lack of transparency in the market, leaving trusts unable to make cost-efficient decisions about purchasing supplies.
‘The consequences of inaction in the back office will only be felt more acutely in frontline care.’
Julian Trent, managing director of the price comparison website Peto, who was also involved in the report, warned that suppliers were ‘taking advantage’ of the NHS.
‘It’s not necessarily about the competence of the NHS, it’s about the pricing behaviour of the suppliers.
‘They are taking advantage of a lack of information. What seems to be happening is rather than a fair price being charged, as much as you can get it being charged.’
The report did not name individual hospitals or the suppliers.
Health minister Lord Howe said that in future hospitals would be better able to compare the prices for equipment.
‘We are working on introducing a new barcoding system that will increase transparency, save money and make care safer,’ he said.
‘The new system will take time, but ultimately it will result in the kind of price comparison website that already exists in other sectors, like supermarkets, and will revolutionise the tracking, safety and use of clinical products bought by the NHS.’
In response Ennogen told Mail Online: ‘Ennogen Healthcare manufactures a range of high-quality generic healthcare products, produced to approved standards and in which it invests significant research and development costs.
Some of those products attract high manufacturing and wastage costs.
‘In the interest of transparency, we register the prices of all our products with the appropriate NHS authorities.
‘Like many medicines available to the NHS, all our products are subject to competition and a range of complex market forces which allows the NHS to achieve good value for money.
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